The Miseducation of the Filipino

EDUCATION

• Vital weapon for economic emancipation, political independence and cultural renascence

• Produce Filipinos who are aware of country’s problems , understand basic solution to these, care enough and have courage to sacrifice for country’s salvation

Nationalism in Education

• Filipino First Policy – our goal: economic emancipation

• No comprehensive educational program has been advanced as a corollary, only techniques and tools for improved instruction

• Effect: a citizenry ignorant of our basic ills and apathetic to our national welfare

New Perspectives

• The educational system and the philosophy were valid only within the framework of American colonialism

• Designed to correspond to the economic and political reality of American conquest

Capturing Minds

• Most effective means of subjugating a people• As long as feelings of resistance are in the

hearts of the vanquished, no conqueror is secure

• (Japanese occupation) if they had stayed longer, minds would have been conditioned to suit the policies of Japanese imperialists

If it is the best means of conquest, then EDUCATION will serve as a weapon in wars of colonial conquest

American military authorities had to employ all means to pacify a people whose hopes for independence were being frustrated by the presence of another conqueror – no measure could so quickly promote the pacification of the islands as EDUCATION

Beginnings of Colonial Education

• Education of Filipinos under American – instrument of colonial policy

• Young minds shaped to conform to American ideas to be good colonials

• Indigenous Filipino ideals slowly eroded to remove the last vestiges of resistance

Education

1. attracted the people to the new masters

2. Diluted their nationalism which had just succeeded in overthrowing a foreign power

“... the immediate adoption of English in the Philippine schools subjected America to the charge of forcing the language of the conquerors upon a defenseless people.”

The American Vice-Governor

• Jones Act – granted the Filipinos more autonomy

• the department of education was never entrusted to any Filipino up to 1935

• No need of American overseers during the Commonwealth since a new generation of “Filipino-Americans” had already been produced

Cultural Assimilation: American culture as the goal of Filipino society

Whenever there was a conflict between American and Filipino interests, the schools guided us toward action and thought which could forward American interests

Goals of American Education

• “save the Filipinos from illiteracy and ignorance”

• Filipinos had to be trained as citizens of an American colony

• Philippine education to preserve and expand American control- the pattern of education fostered and established certain attitudes on the governed

Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation

• They came not as conquerors, but as friends• To spread amongst us the boons of liberty and

democracy• The Philippines was theirs to protect and to

guide- The Filipino people were still a

conquered nation whose national life had to be woven into the pattern of American dominance

An Uprooted Race

• English as the medium of instruction- separated Filipinos from their past and separated educated Filipinos from the masses- new language and a new way of life

• Learned no longer as Filipinos but as colonials- disoriented from nationalist goals to become good colonials and to live peacefully under the colonial order

Economic Attitudes

• subtle approach free trade as gift of American altruism

• Lack of understanding of their economic motives success of education for colonials

• Change in consumption habits (duty-free)

How did you picture the Philippines when you were asked to draw it in grade school?

1. Strengthens the belief that the Philippines is essentially meant to be an agricultural country and we cannot change that.- apathy toward industrialization

2. The idealized picture of farm life overlooks the poverty and ignorance of backward farm communities.- there is no interest in revamping rural life no understanding of its economic problems- urgent need for basic agrarian reform

Western nations superior beings capable of manufacturing things

Taught in school that we are primarily an agricultural country by geographical location.

* Colonialism has to be extirpated from their lives to be free, prosperous and happy!

Transplanting Political Institutions

• Political parties more as tools of colonial rule and less as interpreters of the people’s will and ideals self–interests first

• Indigenous institutions were disregarded• Belief in freedom of the press?

Re-examination Demanded

• Education must be seen as the making of man so that he may function most effectively and usefully within his own society

• FALLACY: educational goals should be the same everywhere (unless same political, cultural, economic level and goals)

Adoption of Western Values

U.S. PhilippinesIndustrial

Fully developed (economically)

No foreign culture has been superimposed upon it

Stresses internationalism & underplays nationalism

Colonial economyTiny industrial base

Backward & underdeveloped

People alienated from own cultural heritage

World brotherhood, without the firm foundation of nationalism = harmful results

Un-Filipino Filipinos

There is apathy because there is no nationalism in our hearts which will spur is to protect our own countrymen first.

We cannot progress without the help of foreign capital and foreign entrepreneurs.

Non-nationalistic outlook SCHOOLS- little emphasis on nationalism

RESULT:

A citizenry naive and trusting in its relations with foreigners, ready to help aliens in the despoilation of our natural wealth.

Colonial Education is to blame.

Centuries of colonial status as a grace from above rather than a scourge.

American colonial education is EFFECTIVE!

Is it any wonder that having regained our independence, we have forgotten to defend it?

Is it any wonder that when leaders on education try to teach us how to be free, majority of the people find it difficult to grasp those nationalistic principles?